Ask John: Will Saint Young Men Ever Be Animated?

Question:
Saint Young Men seems like a very popular manga in Japan. It sells very well and in 2009 received the Osamu Tezuka cultural prize for short work manga. The manga-ka Hikaru Nakamura’s other work “Arakawa Under the Bridge” has done well, having been made into animated and live-action works. So do you think Saint Young Men will be animated in the future? Do you think any U.S. company will release the manga in English in the near future? One has to wonder, even though it’s a comedy, of it receiving a U.S. release since the subject matter is a bit controversial (Jesus and Buddha living in modern-day Tokyo while taking a vacation on Earth).

Answer:
I can’t predict the future with any certainty, but my gut instinct is that yes, Hikaru Nakamura’s satirical manga series Saint Oniisan will eventually get an anime adaptation. The manga series is well known and popular in Japan, and countless examples atest to the precedent that when a manga creator has published multiple manga series, if one of the creator’s series gets an anime adaptation, nearly always a second manga will also get animated. Since Nakamura’s manga Arakawa Under the Bridge has been animated, statistically the odds seem to be well in favor of another manga title by Nakamura also getting an anime adaptation.

If an anime adaptation is indeed more a matter of eventuality than possibility, the bigger question is why the manga series hasn’t officially reached America yet. While a satirical depiction of Jesus Christ may seem like an obvious hurdle for American release, in fact, it may be Buddha that’s actually a greater obstacle for Americans. Considering that The Simpsons has successfully parodied the Second Coming at least as blasphemously as Saint Oniisan, if not more, and done so without any significant American controversy or moral outrage, I think that we can safely presume that Americans are tolerant of good-natured parody of the Messiah. However, Buddha is a more foreign personage for Americans. But even Buddha isn’t so foreign as to alienate Americans. So, actually, I seriously doubt that the absence of the Saint Oniisan manga in America has anything to do with the story’s characters or content. The lack of an officially English translated version of the Saint Young Men manga series is most likely just due to domestic publishers having full platters and an overwhelming abundance of licensing candidates available in Japan.